Spies 8/4/07 ~1AM

[BaneII]

Just had to post this since there has been a lot of discussion about this map recently. I've always said that this map comes down to tactics above all else. Well tonite I've actually seen the strategy that Ukraine needs to implement to win be put into effect. And once again, this came down to the squad leaders doing what they need to do without the assistance of a CO. The key for Ukraine on this map is to keep Germany from getting more than two flags on the mainland. As long as Germany has three or less flags total, the Ukrainian goal becomes containment and there is no need to try to capture a flag unless they can do it without taking heavy losses. It's all downhill from there as Germany bleeds tickets and loses more as they get mowed down while trying to advance. The optimum layout is for Germany to have flags on any one side of the map so Ukraine can make a line to contain them without splitting their forces. So here are the screenshots of how it played out:












As you can see, Ukraine didn't bunch up but instead spread throughout the forest away from the flags. The goal was to get in front of the flags and if you get wiped, you spawn back at the flag for defense. We also kept the Watermill defended to repulse amphibious assaults from the German UCB. That is the hardest part since the coast extends from one side to the other. But we stayed extremely fluid shifting back and forth to plug any gaps and to flank any attackers. Once again, this was an awesome performance of the squad leaders Project, mantis, SentryGuard, myself, and the two others since we were not communicating with each other. Only at TG can you find this level of performance.

Props to the Ukrainian team and my squadmates NorCal, luuser, thundeer, Barracuda, and Sumluv. I was surprised that we took top squad especially since we spent the majority of the time on defense maneuvering from one point to another. Unfortunately, I didn't get a screenshot of the player scorelist.

P.S. Special shoutout to chompy_the_goat who inspired us to capture the Bunkers when he assaulted it all by himself. I could just hear him shouting "C'mon you bastards! Do you want to live forever?!"

[jaymind]

Of course, it helps that the German team was a bunch of complete ^&%$$ idiots the entire night and that was no different than this map.

Last night gets marked down as one of my top 3 most aggravating nights ever!

All that was ever seen on the minimap, for this map and the others, was one big glob of blue crap slowly moving from flag to flag and not leaving a soul behind for defense.

[Beatnik]

Originally Posted by jaymind

Of course, it helps that the German team was a bunch of complete ^&%$$ idiots the entire night and that was no different than this map.

Last night gets marked down as one of my top 3 most aggravating nights ever!

All that was ever seen on the minimap, for this map and the others, was one big glob of blue crap slowly moving from flag to flag and not leaving a soul behind for defense.

LOL We were discussing the inevitable posting of a thread discussing this game. If you recall, all of last night's games were all blowouts, save for a 2 point eeking win on that Berezen assault map.

Too bad noone has the straight up points screenshot showing who was on both teams. Our team was virtually all n00bs, all night, and except for the TGers in my squad, there wasn't a single (iirc) TG member on the rest of the team. We even had a commander for the last half of that Spies game who was apparently ordering the entire team to pile on to a single flag, leaving other flags undefended. I didn't realize this until the end, when he said in the open channel "EVERYONE on to the center flag!" Of course, 20 seconds later we lost our last remaining flag. So yes, with a team full of smacktards (remember the blowout on Lutsk just before this? how we struggled to hold a single flag after my squad moved out from defending castle for 3/4 of that match?) it is possible for UKR to win on spies. This does beg the question why didn't anyone try to balance the teams themselves after so many consecutive blowouts, but that's a topic for another thread.

Not to sound pissy, but I wouldn't consider (from the GER perspective) last night's match to be a valid argument for the balance of weapons. After the previous matches, at the beginning of Spies I bet my squad a collective $5 that we would get blown out.

That being said, I've played Spies as UKR and the VEPR is not "slightly more effective than a spitwad at medium velocity". There may be hope for the map yet. But I'm still waiting to see a non-GER blowout with roughly balanced teams.

[BaneII]

Originally Posted by Beatnik

LOL We were discussing the inevitable posting of a thread discussing this game. If you recall, all of last night's games were all blowouts, save for a 2 point eeking win on that Berezen assault map.

Too bad noone has the straight up points screenshot showing who was on both teams. Our team was virtually all n00bs, all night, and except for the TGers in my squad, there wasn't a single (iirc) TG member on the rest of the team. We even had a commander for the last half of that Spies game who was apparently ordering the entire team to pile on to a single flag, leaving other flags undefended. I didn't realize this until the end, when he said in the open channel "EVERYONE on to the center flag!" Of course, 20 seconds later we lost our last remaining flag. So yes, with a team full of smacktards (remember the blowout on Lutsk just before this? how we struggled to hold a single flag after my squad moved out from defending castle for 3/4 of that match?) it is possible for UKR to win on spies. This does beg the question why didn't anyone try to balance the teams themselves after so many consecutive blowouts, but that's a topic for another thread.

Not to sound pissy, but I wouldn't consider (from the GER perspective) last night's match to be a valid argument for the balance of weapons. After the previous matches, at the beginning of Spies I bet my squad a collective $5 that we would get blown out.

That being said, I've played Spies as UKR and the VEPR is not "slightly more effective than a spitwad at medium velocity". There may be hope for the map yet. But I'm still waiting to see a non-GER blowout with roughly balanced teams.

I don't believe anyone but you has mentioned weapon balance in this thread. My original post was about the tactics that Ukraine used to win. As you can see from the screenshots, they did what they needed to do to secure a win. They defended the territory necessary to keep the bleed, lined up on defense and waited to mow down the German advance. Whereas before Santa and I discussed the tactics that Germany used of surround and pound to win the same map, the Ukraine players never posted what tactics they were using in response. It has been others previously that have brought up weapon imbalance as overshadowing tactics. The purpose of this thread was to show the proper employment of tactics by Ukraine that is necessary to secure a win. I said previously that if the sides were reversed, we would have pulled a win. This time it was mantis and Project as the other two TG squad leaders on Ukraine implementing the proper strategy. Even SL4 SentryGuard (who I am not familiar with) and the two small squads ended up where they needed to be more often than not. I'll keep talking tactics while others look for other answers.

As for the teams, only I had the all TG squad. You can see from the screenshot who was with mantis and that it was a learning squad. Squad 1 was lead by Project, but I believe it was mostly with filled with unfamiliar players. Project would have to tell you more about that. Squad 4 was unfamiliars also along with a 2 man squad. The one man squad was IMI-50AE running around by himself as AP if I remember correctly. Germany could have easily spread the TGers to each squad to squad lead just as mantis and Project did. Yes, team players do make a difference but so do team squad leaders.

[Drizzid]

This can be argued until everyone is blue in the face. I think the only way to come close to settling this debate is to have an inhouse TG scrim with Spies being one of the maps in this scrim. Maybe even have a one round Spies with all TGers on the private server to find out who is right and who is wrong. Personally I think BaneII has a very strong argument.

[jaymind]

No one is saying that Bane doesn't have a strong point, but last night is not the night to base any conclusions on.

I, personally, happen to agree with Bane on the tactics to use for this map (it ain't brain surgery!) but it's wrong to base any conclusions off of one insignificant data point.

In order for the UKR to lose last night would have required that every single UKR team member commit ritual suicide over and over again; or have Shakey on their team - either way was the only way they would have lost.

[FBmantis]

Originally Posted by BaneII

As for the teams, only I had the all TG squad. You can see from the screenshot who was with mantis and that it was a learning squad. Squad 1 was lead by Project, but I believe it was mostly with filled with unfamiliar players. Project would have to tell you more about that. Squad 4 was unfamiliars also along with a 2 man squad. The one man squad was IMI-50AE running around by himself as AP if I remember correctly. Germany could have easily spread the TGers to each squad to squad lead just as mantis and Project did. Yes, team players do make a difference but so do team squad leaders.

This is what we can learn from last night fellas. I mean if I throw up this scoreboard...does one side look stacked?...not at all.



Lutsk and Spies all game down to leadership with me and Fatkid running non TG squads on Lutsk and then me and Project doing it again on Spies. These players are not smacktards...they just need leadership...Learn TG works.

[khaerus]

This was kind of a nuts round. Melee and I eventually left squad 4 because of the Whack-a-mole tactics being ordered (there was literally not one "defend" order the whole round.) We became that 2-man squad just to avoid insubordination. When I was leading the 2-man squad, it quickly became apparent why we were getting waxed: Our commander was ordering all the squads to the same place, every time, all round.

We Germans had no chance with tactics like that. My vote on this subject is strongly in the "we deserved what we got" category. It was ridiculous. The Ukrainians did nothing special; the Germans flushed the round themselves.

Here's the edit: I shouldn't say "the Ukrainians did nothing special." They did play well and cohesively. I should have said something along the lines of "they did nothing out of the ordinary," meaning that they used the good teamwork that I'm accustomed to seeing on a TG server. Sorry if my first words sounded rude...

[Beatnik]

It was a leadership thing, without a doubt. There was no discipline or coordination, orther than a flat out zerg from flag to flag. Having a commander order a zerg (which I wish I'd realized earlier than having ~80 tix left) doesn't help things.

Looking at the scoreboards above, you'll see that the TG players were in my squad, and I assume a 5th squad (with melee and khaerus). That leaves 20+ players running around like chickens with their heads cut off all night. It was exceptionally frustrating.

That being said, at least one team had their act together. Over the course of those 4-5 maps we played last night, I tried accepting other players in my squad all night but was continually kicking new guys for going off the reservation, flying, and generally ****ing around across the map. We tried spamming "Need Help!" when we'd cap a back flag to spread out defenses, to no avail. We screamed to maintain defenses when we rarely attained bleed (particularly on Berezne), only to see every squad zerg toward other flags. Those in my squad were incredulous.

At least I'm not still bitter.

[shakeyjake]

Frustrating stuff last night. Saddle back up and lets do it right tonight.

[Santa]

What Mantis said is really important though. Make TG learn squads! The majority of the players are not completely clueless, they just need a decent squad leader (And really, not even someone too great at it). Recently ive actually gotten more enjoyment out of leading TG learn squads because you dont expect to win every engagement. So each time you DO win an engagement, it kinda fires you up and its exciting again, especially for the new guys who have never had an SL lead them around in BF2. When you have an all TG tagged squad, you expect to win most engagements and its less exciting when you do.

Also, its best to have a lot of TG SLs rather than a lot of TG squad members. Ill take a team with 4 TG squad leaders full of pubbies over 1 squad full of TG squad members on my team any day.

[FBmantis]

^Yep...as I told my 12th brothers...I get a big kick out of leading new guys through those "oh crap we just did X" events. Holdings off tons of armor or storming a flag they thought was impossible. Its new to them so they get quite talkative.

[Sabre_Tooth_Tigger]

I havent even played poe recently but I recognise the tales of one side being absolutely awful. We had about a week of this in pr 0.5 back in June I think it was.
Its a pity the game doesnt allow a squad to switch sides to try and turn the tide, maybe an admin could ask for volunteers and facilitate this?

Imagine a team losing 3 or 4 maps in a row, then your squad switches to their side and they win, I think thats about the highest positive feedback you could have from a game

[BaneII]

Originally Posted by FBmantis

This is what we can learn from last night fellas. I mean if I throw up this scoreboard...does one side look stacked?...not at all.



Lutsk and Spies all game down to leadership with me and Fatkid running non TG squads on Lutsk and then me and Project doing it again on Spies. These players are not smacktards...they just need leadership...Learn TG works.

Thanks for the scoreboard, mantis. As you can see, each team only had one person who had over thirty kills. Everyone else was in the twenties and below. That pretty much in-line with even teams. The majority of Germany's ticket loss came from bleed, not Ukrainian kills. I didn't even breakout of the teens in kills since I sat on defense the majority of the round waiting for company rather than going out looking for kills. But I would rather win the round than try to top the scoreboard.

Originally Posted by Sabre_Tooth_Tigger

I havent even played poe recently but I recognise the tales of one side being absolutely awful. We had about a week of this in pr 0.5 back in June I think it was.
Its a pity the game doesnt allow a squad to switch sides to try and turn the tide, maybe an admin could ask for volunteers and facilitate this?

Imagine a team losing 3 or 4 maps in a row, then your squad switches to their side and they win, I think thats about the highest positive feedback you could have from a game.

The POE2 server is configured to switch the team sides every round and deletes the squads. So the squads are different each round unless you make the effort to reform your previous squad. However, you do get some randomization as someone goes off to fly or snipe depending upon the map. In-house squads may make the effort to reform regularly sometimes. The real question we are debating is leadership. While a team is composed of players, the real power of a team is potential. Only with leadership can that potential be realized. If the leadership is lacking on a team, it's potential is severely limited. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon to have a dearth of leadership. The best squad leaders are still the TG vets that have been playing for the past 2 years. For whatever reason, new players have not stepped in to fill the gaps. While I do join squads with unfamiliar squad leaders to see how they perform, I normally end up making my own squad since I can't find one that isn't lacking. I find it amusing to watch the squads being made at the beginning of a round. You will see a couple of unknown guys in a squad for the majority of the countdown with the rest of the team waiting unsquaded. But if I make a squad in the last ten seconds, it will be instantly filled before the countdown ends. Now why is that?

[Sabre_Tooth_Tigger]

PR has the same thing, I meant a squad moving from the side thats winning every map to the side that normally loses. The server keeps each side distinct hence why it can become lobsided